UC President Yudof vs. ‘landlord from hell’

In 2009, UC workers protested at Yudof’s home. Afterwards, the university spent more than $100,000 on security.

Talk about a tenant-landlord dispute on steroids. The Bay Citizen probed the battle between UC President Mark Yudof and Brennan Mulligan, the man Yudof called “the landlord from hell,” over an Oakland Hills mansion. What Bay Citizen uncovered was a lengthy housing saga that took up university money (more than $600,000, estimates The Bay Citizen), not to mention time from school officials who tried to help settle issues like the water bill and gopher problems.

When Yudof was appointed UC president in 2008, he and his wife chose not to live at the Blake House, where university presidents traditionally live, because it needed extensive repairs. So the couple settled into the 10,000-square-foot, 16-room home.

Over the next two years, Yudof ordered various repairs and improvements on the phones, air conditioning and an indoor elevator. The Yudofs were eventually told to leave. On June 30, they moved five minutes before their lease expired on midnight and stayed at an East Bay resort. All this was done on UC’s dime, according to The Bay Citizen:

The university paid … $39,107.30 to move him again when Mulligan refused to extend the lease. The frantic move from the Oakland location lasted from 7:30 a.m. to 1:45 a.m. the next day, according to billing records. During the three-week search for a new house, the Yudofs took up residence in a discounted suite at the Claremont Hotel & Spa in the Berkeley Hills, at a cost of $8,394.16 to the U.C.

Housing expenses — including the $13,365 monthly rent at the Oakland home — were funded by a private endowment, reports The Bay Citizen. Still, amid the university’s budget crisis, the spending doesn’t sit well state Senator Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, and some school officials who were dragged into Yudof’s residential drama.

The Yudofs now live in a 4,837-square-foot home in Lafayette. It costs $11,500 a month to rent. The university has also hired someone to oversee spending and operations at Yudof’s new home. Mulligan said he’s keeping $32,100 deposit and says he’s owed tens of thousands to fix damages to the home, while the university claims Mulligan owes it $50,000 for repairs and renovations. Both sides may go to mediation.